Six-channel sound installation, imprints on paper, metal cast of the human throat

The artist explores the structural relationships between the organ and the human voice, a connection rooted in the ancient concept of Organon, which unified instrument, body, and tool. […] Wenzel’s practice reactivates the instrument’s pipes through a sound installation, a series of works on paper, and a lead sculpture that mirrors the human larynx. By focusing on the organ’s mechanical construction—a system of breathing, tension, and valves—she highlights the intertwining of the instrument-machine and the human vocal organ as a form of oral quest. As noted in the exhibition’s research, the sounds produced by the organ serve as “immaterial extensions of our bodies.”

For this project, Wenzel salvaged the pipes of a silenced organ, arranging them into a sound installation on the floor like a rose window. […] Deprived of their original mechanical breath, the pipes are reactivated by twelve pre-recorded tones of an opera singer broadcast across six channels, creating an experience of reverberation and temporal layering. The analogy continues through a lead diptych of the larynx and a series of paper imprints, where silenced pipes are pressed into the surface like ghostly bas-reliefs. […] These forms follow one another on the gallery walls as silent presences of a grandiose instrument, settling a sense of melancholy between its past power and its sonic reactivation. Ultimately, Wenzel’s work explores the transition from the imposing musical instrument to its disappearance, finding a new aesthetic and reflective resonance through the human voice.

Text by Fabienne Bideaud, Associate Curator

Exhibition at Traits Libres Gallery,Paris

Photos by Aurélien Mole